Swifter, higher, stronger – and poorer

Caitlin Compton skied uphill in the 10-kilometer-freestyle event at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Alaska last month. Compton, who lives in Minneapolis and struggles with financing her athletic pursuits, placed second in the event.

/ Michael Dinneen / AP

Caitlin Compton skied uphill in the 10-kilometer-freestyle event at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Alaska last month. Compton, who lives in Minneapolis and struggles with financing her athletic pursuits, placed second in the event.

Caitlin Compton skied uphill in the 10-kilometer-freestyle event at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Alaska last month. Compton, who lives in Minneapolis and struggles with financing her athletic pursuits, placed second in the event. (/ Michael Dinneen / AP)

Caitlin Compton won the 5-kilometer-freestyle title at the U.S. Cross Country Championships last year in Anchorage, Alaska, then flew home to Minneapolis.

The next day she was back at work. Cleaning toilets.

“I’m not too proud to admit it,” she says.

To get a break on rent, Compton cut a deal with her apartment complex to serve as a “caretaker,” which is a fancy way of saying she cleaned apartments — living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms — once tenants had moved out, or put trash back in the Dumpsters whenever dogs got into them. When the caretaker deal ended, Compton and her boyfriend had to move because they couldn’t afford the full rent.

It was the eighth time in four years she packed up.

“It’s one of those things: If I want to be an Olympic athlete, this is what I have to do,” says Compton, 29, who’s scheduled to compete in four events at the Winter Games that open tomorrow in Vancouver. “I just had to keep telling myself: ‘Go for this. Don’t let financial reasons keep you from chasing your dream.’ ”

It’s a pep talk that more and more U.S. Olympic athletes are having with themselves as sponsorship and endorsement opportunities evaporate in the global recession like a puddle in unseasonably warm Vancouver. It doesn’t mean the Olympics are any less prestigious for athletes. It just means that unless you’re snowboarder Shaun White or alpine ski queen Lindsey Vonn or have really rich parents, you’re probably going to be poor doing it.

The U.S. Olympic Committee says it paid out $16.5 million to its winter sports national governing bodies for the 2009-10 season, a substantial increase compared with the year before the 2006 Winter Games. But much of that money goes to staffing and infrastructure, and it’s performance-based. The sports with consistent international success get the most; the also-rans are left largely to fend for themselves.

Bahrke won a silver medal in freestyle skiing’s moguls event at the 2002 Olympics, and she had one of 85 jobs that The Home Depot provided as part of its U.S. Olympic sponsorship, affording those athletes a regular paycheck but flexible hours to train and travel. But Home Depot’s job program was a casualty of the recession, and Bahrke needed supplemental income.

She started the Silver Bean Coffee Co. She buys, roasts, packages and sells six blends of beans, donating $1 from each bag to athletes on the U.S. ski team.

“For the C-team athletes, that’s always been the reality,” Bahrke, 29, says of the economic hardships. “But now it’s becoming the reality for all of us. I’ve been on the ski team for 12 years, and this is the first year I’ve had to put in my own money. It’s kind of frustrating. I’m top 10 in the world, and now I’m being asked to pay for things — for chiropractors, for massages, for trips to World Cup events.

“But what are they going to do if they don’t have the money?”

Some have been more fortunate than others. U.S. speed skating took a major hit when its primary sponsor, Dutch bank DSB — the sport is huge in the Netherlands — went belly up last year. Stephen Colbert and his Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” came to the rescue, raising a reported $300,000 in donations in a self-effacing, humorous pitch to viewers.

But it’s not such a laughing matter to other winter sports. The cross-country skiers tell similar tales of woe, of sleeping on floors, of shilling for extra frequent-flier miles from neighbors so they can get to a World Cup event in Norway, of finding gigs housesitting when they can’t afford to buy or even rent a place.

It has caused some to question the Olympic model in this country, which is privately funded and receives no direct government support. The Canadian government, meanwhile, launched the $100 million-plus “Own the Podium 2010” project to subsidize its athletes ahead of the Vancouver Games.

U.S. cross-country skier Kikkan Randall knows all about it. Her husband, Jeff Ellis, is a Canadian cross-country skier on the fringes of the national team. Their big hope was that Ellis would make the Canadian C team, which would get him more financial support than Randall receives as an American despite finishing second in the individual sprint event at the 2009 World Championships.

“I was kind of hoping after I won the silver medal there would be more (sponsorship) opportunities,” says Randall, 27, “but those opportunities kind of closed up.”

Instead, Randall tried to defray the estimated $30,000 to $40,000 a year it costs to compete in her sport with a sponsorship from Subway restaurants in Anchorage, where she and Ellis live in what she describes as a “modest house.” A hospital is another sponsor. A Subaru dealer gave her a car to drive — gold, of course.

In Minneapolis, Compton drives a 1994 Dodge Spirit that was a hand-me-down from her grandfather via her teenage brother. She used to have a Ford truck but sold it because she needed gas money to drive to an event in New York.

Some days the Dodge starts. Some days it doesn’t. The trunk doesn’t close all the way. Compton ripped out the back seats because they don’t fold down in that model and she couldn’t fit her skis or bulky equipment bags inside.

“Something I need to look into is a brake sponsor, because I definitely seem to go through a lot of brakes,” she says.

Compton laughs. She wouldn’t have it any other way. When the Dodge doesn’t start and she can’t drive to cross-country-skiing facilities, she shrugs and takes in a run in the adjacent park instead or pops on her roller skis.

“I’ve always enjoyed being outdoors and being an athlete,” Compton says. “I have no need to drive a fancy car or live an extravagant lifestyle. … To live modestly puts it all in perspective for me. You never get too comfortable.